While the area avoided the morning storms, a severe thunderstorm watch has been issued until 9 p.m.

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There were more than 25,000 DTE Energy customers without power in the Metro Detroit area, but Oakland County only accounted for about 6,000 of that figure, Donerson said.

Southwest Oakland County has been the hardest hit area, Donerson said, where there are approximately 2,500 customers without power along the I-696 corridor, according to the company’s outage map.

By comparison, there were more than 47,000 homes without power in all of Michigan and approximately 27,000 outages in DTE’s Southeast Michigan coverage area.

DTE hopes to have most customers restored by the end of the day, Donerson said, but that could change as storms continue to hit the area.

Wednesday’s storms were accompanied by spectacular early-morning displays of lightning. That came a day after a funnel cloud briefly touched down Tuesday in the northern Lower Peninsula, damaging buildings and vehicles.

According to Accuweather, thunderstorms will persist through Thursday afternoon and they can bring downpours, large hail and damaging winds.